Soft Sell Those ever-so-nice solicitors are eating up your workers' time.

One of your employees is selling candy to help his kids raisemoney for a school project. Another is passing out brochures andtaking orders for a party to sell jewelry or food-storagecontainers. And then there's the salesperson who stops by witha supply of lunch items for your employees to purchase. It's nobig deal, right? Wrong.

"While workplace solicitation may seem harmless, it has thepotential to create labor problems, productivity problems andmorale problems for employers," says D. Allen Miller, managingdirector of Business Advantage International, a human resourceservices firm in Farmington, Utah.

Under Miller's guidance, Bing Fang, 35, president of AMTLabs in North Salt Lake, Utah, enforces a solicitation andliterature distribution policy at his neutraceutical manufacturingcompany. The policy prohibits solicitation of employees on companyproperty by all unapproved outside entities. "We make vitaminand mineral supplements, and we follow stringent sanitationregulations," Fang says. "Outside solicitors couldaccidentally contaminate products or be hurt byequipment."